<p>My D was turned off after meeting with a faculty member and discovering how large her classes would be for the first couple of years. Also, the visit made her realize that she wanted a more traditional American college experience and is focusing her search on Big Ten schools.</p>
<p>She really loved everything about Wisconsin. We had a really mediocre tour guide at Michigan, but she was very impressed with the school, her enthusiasm only tempered by her doubts about getting in.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your entertaining and informative posts.</p>
<p>My DD took Ithaca College off her list because of lack of diversity and campus âfeelâ. I, on the other hand, really liked Ithaca and thought that the campus was gorgeous.</p>
<p>We had the same experience! My S although thought Ithaca was a bit too rigid in its requirements. And I was thinking âif I could go back to collegeâŠâ</p>
<p>We didnât cross this school off the list entirely, but it gives me great pause:</p>
<p>We visited Kalamazoo expecting to love it, but certain things made me wonder. The guide told us that if you miss more than two classes professors will dock your grade. She said when she was sick she had to get notes signed from the doctor. This struck me as being really wrong. These are adults needing notes if they are feeling sick? Does this happen at other schools? This sounded so uptight.</p>
<p>I was very excited about DSâs getting accepted at Skidmore and receiving a rather generous financial aid package, but after spending a day there, he had decided he definitely did not want to attend. He said it was âtoo refinedâ for him and that he felt almost like he was at a golf course / country club. </p>
<p>I really liked it a lot though - maybe for the next child?? :)</p>
<p>Like in many experiences related here, my daughter and I had a poor tour guide at UMichigan, who came across as sardonic and weary of the place. How he ended up a guide I have no idea. My daughter was very impressed with Michigan despite the tour.</p>
<p>Oldest DS looked at Colorado State. We had a tour guide who said her main reason for attending was the Swing Dance club. Umm-too random for my son. She also didnât want to go to very many buildings because it was snowing and she hated snow.
Middle DS looked at Indiana for theatre. A boy in our tour group wore his sweater over his shoulders and kept talking about all the leads he had while in high school. DS and DH kept calling him sweater boy and that was that for applying there.</p>
<p>barrons, I donât think itâs about being unsophisticated or thoughtless. There are thousands of colleges in the country, dozens of which could conceivably in the consideration set for any given student. I was actually GLAD when my son put his foot down on âno colonial architecture.â It helped us rule out a lot of schools that were otherwise interesting to him, while still leaving a large number to investigate further.</p>
<p>barrons, the fun of this thread is that teens often make judgements in ways adults think are unsophisticated and thoughtless. We parents hurrumph and claim weâd make better judgements⊠maybe, maybe not.</p>
<p>I had to look at the title of the thread. I thought it was the âStupidest Reasons a Kid Crossed a College Off the List.â Not the title, but still the topic.</p>
<p>Yes, I think there were originally two different threads, one with legitimate reasons (or seemingly so) reasons for discounting a school based on a visit and one with silly/stupid/hilarious reasons for doing so, and theyâve both kind of become conflated into this thread. </p>
<p>We are just starting visits with DS, two years after doing them with his sister. All I can say is, and this is totally new and never happened with my daughter: if looking at two schools in a day or two daysâ timeâwoe to the school whose tour guide is less hot. Yes, that is awful. Yes, that is how this kid thinks. Sigh.</p>
<p>I donât think they are mutually exclusive. The whole point of visiting is to decide if you like or donât like the place. I am not sure there are any right or wrong reasons. When my sister was applying to colleges in the late 80s she just would not make a decision, so finally she begrudgingly glanced through all the brochures on the dining room table and picked the one with the âcutestâ guys.</p>
<p>Yes there are 1000s of colleges and most are eliminated off the bat because they are not very good. But I guess I expect a bit more thought after spending time and $$$ on a visit than to get such responses. The style choice of some other tour kid?? really. really.</p>
<p>This has been posted, but my daughter at first wrote off Georgetown because of the attire of the tour guide. DD thought that it reflected on the judgment of the guide. It happens.</p>
<p>Kids sometimes sense something they canât exactly put their fingers on. It comes out as âI saw a kid walking around barefootâ when what was really bothering them was that they saw a lot of kids who looked druggy to them; or âToo many cowsâ when what they were really feeling was that the school was too isolated and didnât have enough to offer in the way of off-campus life.</p>
<p>In my sonâs case the seemingly silly reason he crossed a few schools off his list was that they didnât have football teams. His sister pointed out that he didnât play football, didnât watch football, didnât even seem to like football, yet he insisted, football or bust. We realized that it was his was of selecting for schools that had at least a modicum of school spirit and that werenât too artsy. In the end this apparently frivolous criterion helped steer him toward schools that were a better fit.</p>
<p>Well put, Sue. Anyway, barrons, why so judgy? One could argue that most college visits are a waste since the ROI is zero for all but the one school the kid picks. Or one could value the time spent together in the waning days of childhood. I wouldnât trade the trips I have taken with my kids for anything. I just canât imagine ever saying that a day in the car together or a long weekend exploring a new area (with a college tour thrown in) was a waste of time or money.</p>
<p>Thanks Sally! I was feeling kind of bad that I chose to share the story. Sheesh! The criteria my son looked at isnât what I would have looked at but Iâm not a 17 yo boy. I also loved the bonding time with just one kid and DH. I wouldnât change it for the world.</p>
<p>Iâm another that loves the bonding time - and reading the stories. There are millions of ways to cut colleges and as long as the student ends up with a good one (for them) they like, who cares what reason they useâŠ</p>
<p>Middle son didnât âcutâ schools putting an overemphasis on football and sports (âIf youâre not a sports fan when you come, you will be when you leaveâŠâ), but they did take a huge drop after we visited them. The schools where students freely talked about their classes and research jumped up. Fortunately, heâs loving his time at one of the latter.</p>
<p>Even while visiting with older brothers, youngest has been judging colleges by how well their plants are kept up - from trees, shrubs, and gardens to indoor potted plants. His interest is between botany and tropical bio⊠so it makes sense - though not when I tell it âthe way it happened.â (He saw a dead plant in an office and immediately wrote the school off his list - 'cept it wasnât his list - it was his brotherâs - and brother is at that school loving it. )</p>
)</p>